Quadruple Shot

After thinking it through, the middle-aged guard grew deeply uneasy. The muscles in his face twitched from the intense pain. He kept wavering his crossbow, trying to aim at the woman, but his fingertips wouldn't stop trembling! He couldn't get her into his sights, so in the end, he had to predict where she would move. His finger twitched, and he pulled the trigger.

With a soft hiss, a crossbow bolt shot out, crackling with electric sparks! The woman screamed, but managed to avoid a vital spot. The bolt struck her left arm, and her body shuddered as her arm went limp and dropped to her side. She clearly couldn't use it for now, but her agility remained unaffected, and she kept charging forward!

In the blink of an eye, the distance between them had shrunk to less than three meters. At that range, ranged attacks were practically useless; the time it took to raise a weapon and aim left you open to attack. Anyone skilled in close combat had the advantage.

The woman's long, shapely legs, clad in alluring black stockings, lashed out in a series of kicks. The middle-aged guard raised both elbows and struggled to block them, but each kick landed with a sharp smack, driving him backward again and again. That wasn't all. From behind, Fang Linyan could see the wound beneath the guard's vest worsening. Blood poured from between the charred, torn flesh, leaving him clearly at a severe disadvantage.

Seeing this, Fang Linyan couldn't help glancing at the display case beside him. A powerful urge suddenly surged through him: rush over, smash it open, grab the Mayflower Compact, and leave!

If he moved swiftly, the whole thing would take no more than five seconds. But reason immediately warned him not to take that risk! The Scholar milestone looked like the hardest one so far. It required Contract­ors to fight one another, so who could say what the blonde's milestone involved? Fang Linyan calculated that if he rushed in and tried to force the case open, there was a more than sixty percent chance both of them would attack him at once! With his current abilities, he had no chance of surviving that.

At that very moment, the woman surged forward and drove her knee into the middle-aged guard's stomach! Against all odds, the guard let out a furious shout and counterattacked. He drew a dagger from his waist and plunged it straight into her abdomen.

The blow drew a piercing scream from the blonde. Yet somehow, the pain seemed to force out her hidden potential. She suddenly flipped forward, planting her hands on the ground with her head down and feet up. Her long legs snapped together in midair, clamping around the middle-aged guard's neck. Then she wrenched hard and hurled him away.

Neck-Wringing Throw!

The force of the attack lay not in the throw, but in the crushing pressure her legs put on his fragile cervical spine! Fang Linyan even heard a sharp crack from the guard's neck as he flew through the air.

After being thrown, the middle-aged guard slammed his head against the wall. He spat out a mouthful of blood with a wet burst, splashing the floor in front of him bright red! Two of his teeth had also been knocked out, and pain surged through him as stars danced before his eyes.

But he was an experienced fighter. He knew that if he went down now, his opponent would unleash a storm of follow-up attacks. So the middle-aged guard gritted his teeth and struggled to roll aside. Sure enough, a second later, a table lamp smashed into the spot where he'd been lying. It shattered with a crash, sending shards flying and carving a long gash across his cheek.

In that instant, the middle-aged guard knew he was on the brink of extreme danger. His enemy had seized the initiative and driven him to the edge. If he didn't risk everything now, he might not get another chance.

With that thought, he let out a furious yell. A blood-red glow suddenly blazed around him, and he sprang up from the ground. Gripping a black pistol in both hands, he planted his feet and fired repeatedly at the blonde.

As he got to his feet, the blonde pulled the dagger from her abdomen and hurled it at him. The middle-aged guard didn't dodge. The dagger sank into his left chest, but he kept firing without changing expression, as though the blade stuck in his chest had no effect at all.

The blonde gritted her teeth.

"Super Armor Potion!"

Super Armor Potion was an absurdly powerful drug. It greatly suppressed pain and temporarily enhanced the drinker's ability to withstand impact. A machine like a Terminator had very high resistance to being staggered; it could charge forward under a hail of bullets without reacting. Put simply, the potion temporarily made a human body as freakishly tough as a machine.

But once its effects wore off, the injuries would catch up with the user. Like a stimulant, it was only good for a desperate, temporary fight.

Seeing her enemy reveal his trump card, the blonde ignored the risk of worsening her abdominal wound and dodged with a backflip. Blood droplets scattered through the air. The middle-aged guard kept firing, but couldn't track her movements. Just as the blonde was about to leap behind the nearby wall, her whole body suddenly stiffened. She let out a piercing, baffled scream and collapsed.

Seizing the opening, the middle-aged guard drew a deep breath. Blue light blazed across his gun as he activated a skill and fired all four remaining bullets in one burst! The powerful impact of the Quadruple Shot sent the blonde flying into the nearby display table.

After the Quadruple Shot hit, the blood-red glow around the middle-aged guard vanished completely. His body swayed, and he slumped helplessly to the ground. Even then, he remembered to look back toward where Fang Linyan had been—but the young man was nowhere to be seen.

The middle-aged guard was decisive. His facial muscles twitched as he slammed a fist into the floor and roared:

"That kid in the trench coat! I'll remember you. So you're good at black magic? Don't let me run into you again!"

After saying this, his figure gradually faded, then broke apart into streams of pale blue data made up of countless zeros and ones. Finally, he vanished into thin air. Clearly, he had left this world and successfully returned. Ordinary people couldn't see this strange phenomenon, however, and paid it no mind.

Why had the middle-aged guard said that? Because the blonde's sudden, inexplicable paralysis and scream had been Fang Linyan's doing. He'd seized the opportunity to unleash a Blood Spider on her. The Blood Spider's attack was already extremely stealthy, and the blonde had been caught completely off guard.